Forgotten City “heroes”? Time to look back on some infamous names of yesteryear

Well, we all know by now that Villa have joined us in the Promised Land. In my personal view, it should have been Leeds as they finished third but that isn’t how the football world works these days. More’s the pity.

But out of the four teams involved in the (truly) dreaded play-offs, clever old me said on MFW more than once that Villa would win through before a ball had been kicked.

My Villan mate Pat is probably still trying to find a train to get back to Norwich to resume his barbering for gain role in life.

Plus the mob from Villa Park have a trio of alleged billionaires on board to “help” them through next season. I doubt Pat and many thousands of others are too disappointed about that.

We (as in NCFC) will cope.

Moving on, every single member of the Canary Nation will recall our promotion sides and the individuals who featured therein.

Somewhat perversely I thought I’d take time out to mention some of our less-remembered players – and we’d love to hear our readers’ recollections of them as they may well be different to mine

I’ll start with a couple of keepers. Scott Howie who was basically Gunny and Andy Marshall’s deputy who didn’t play much but never let us down when he did. And the excellent occasional Radio Norfolk contributor that is Mark Walton – he played a similar role to Howie.

On to the defence: we had a couple of under-height centre halves (as they were called back in the day). Paul Blades – who had hair like Sting – and Simon Charlton, who had very little more hair then than I have now.

It was never going to work in either case, and frankly it didn’t.

Nor did Thomas Helveg.

Of course, we also had Victor Segura – the only thing I remember about him was that he played against 1p5wich, got injured in a head clash and came back on bandaged for about five minutes until (physio) Tim Sheppard hauled him off.

Then there was Erik Fugelstad – a Norwegian lad who seemed very popular with most of us at the time but played in such a dark era for City that I doubt he is well remembered.

Jurgen Colin? Our terriers could outrun him over 90 minutes. And possibly have more skill.

And that PapaDiop character whose only achievement I can remember was to be sent off for spitting at an opponent.

I nearly forgot the invisible man, aka Matthieu Louis-Jean, who we acquired from Forest. He might have played for us once, although I cannot recall if he ever actually did so.

Moving swiftly into midfield (not that anybody I’ve mentioned so far could actually do that) I must begin with Julien Brellier, who Hearts fans called Le Juge. They even donated their club banner featuring him to the Barclay, correctly surmising they would have no further use for it. And nor did we.

Brellier himself later remarked that he could not pass the ball any further than ten metres and could not cope with the then Division Two.

Andy Hughes and Matty Pattison? I’m not going there in either case. Hopefully one or more of our readers will. but I’m not up for it – I don’t like to swear on MFW.

Now on to the forwards.

I absolutely have to start with Dave Striker. Sorry, I mean David Strihavka. He was on a par with Dean Coney and that’s saying something. Alan Gow? Oh dear me. Unfunny jokes, all three.

Then there was Ulf Ottossen, the Swedish guy who always turned his back when the goal opened up in front of him.And Henrik Mortensen who ran his socks off but achieved nothing until his unfortunate injury more or less put him out of the game for good.

With an honourable exception for the largely excellent Mattias Svensson, we’ve finally found a Scandinavian striker that truly fits the bill. Haven’t we Teemu?

You’ll notice I haven’t used words such as Husband, Franke, (careless) Hansbury, Wildschut or Naismith. I can’t even spell Theoklitos, can I Bryan?

MFW would love to hear from absolutely anybody who can remember greater failures than these – Fugelstad excepted – he just played in a very bad side.

And, especially as Villa gave us a very gracious guard of honour and their supporters always seem decent when they come to the Carra. Congrats to them.

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Comments

How about Gerry Howshall? Signed from WBA In front of supporters at a club social i believe for 25k but injuries and a loss of confidence finished him.
Muzinic was a howler of a signing by John Bond.
For me the worst signings we ever made came under Bryan Hamilton (our worst manager ever?) in the shape of Derveld and De Waard. Now they were seriously bad.

If we’re allowed loaners and taking players at face value, while they played, then Jan Molby. I think the centre spot at Carrow Road is still recovering from the continuous trampling it got during his brief spell. Legend at Liverpool, Laggard at city!

I witnessed Channons debut at Ipswich at Christmas 1982. My favourite game of all time. The most raucous and rowdy support ever to follow City away. Thousands were there and we won 3-2 thanks to a Martin o’neill free kick at the death. That moment is second only to the birth of my children for pure, unadulterated joy.

Channons didn’t score but looked sharp. A coup,e of days later a bumper crowd witnessed his home debut. He scored the winner against Luton.

Louis-Jean was a decent player but got injured in his second game (according to Flown from the Nest) and never recovered, much like Jarvis. In the early days of the club’s official message board he got a lot of stick for being “sicknote” – the perception was that he was happy to be permanently injured and drawing money for doing nothing. Personally I doubt if that’s the case with any player, although there are clearly some who have more determination to overcome adversity than others.

Something similar happened to Neil Emblen who didn’t even manage to complete his first game before being stretchered off.

It’s easy to name dud players from the 3 or 4 years before Worthington acquired Huckerby and co, and also for the end of his reign and the Grant/Roeder era.

For me the biggest duds are earlier ones who actually cost a lot of money – notably Mike Sheron and Darren Beckford. I think the latter’s most memorable contribution was an emergency keeper.

He did indeed score a hat trick in a 4-3 win over Everton Martin. A week before the FA cup semi final from which he was suspended due to being sent off for the reserves. Bloody typical of our luck in that competition.

I think with Louis-Jean he looked completely out of it when he did play for us, he kept getting caught out of position and Andy Hughes was then dragged back from midfield to cover. Hughes wasn’t great but he had the misfortune to start his Norwich career covering for someone else. Whatever caused Louis-Jean to be so bad I don’t know, maybe he was carrying a bad injury maybe it was psychological but I don’t think he played again

Marić joined Norwich City on trial in the summer of 2009, touring with the club during its pre-season in Scotland and scoring twice in three games, against Airdrie United and St Johnstone. Afterwards, manager Bryan Gunn confirmed he had been impressed well enough to offer the player a contract,[4] with the one-year deal being signed on 30 July.[5]

Marić made his official debut for the Canaries against Yeovil Town, for the campaign’s Football League Cup, appearing as a substitute. His first start came in the 2009–10 Football League Trophy against Brentford (1–0 win)[6] but he was almost always fifth-choice during his spell, behind the habitual Grant Holt and Chris Martin but also Jamie Cureton and Cody McDonald; subsequently, he left the side after his link was terminated by mutual consent, on 3 December 2009.[7]

Some gossip floating around at the time when he “stubbed his toe” was the tale of a specialist sports psychiatrist (hired by the club just for him) and the style of a manager which had drained every grain of confidence from him.

Nobody reveals their sources but a mate who I’d trust with my life and lived near RvW at the time told me much more than I’m prepared to post on MFW!

This is one rumour that I could possibly substantiate should push come to shove so I’ll stick my neck out a little further.

The then club doctor used to frequent the same watering hole as a few of my mates. He let it slip that while a certain striker was publicised as having a foot injury he was in fact mentally destroyed by his early experience of Colney.

The phrase “the young toe stubber of Olde Amsterdam” was allegedly used.

Blimey, there are some real crackers amongst that lot. Personally I recall a Scottish full back, signed on a free naturally, who made his debut against Bury or some such in the league cup and was directly responsible for at least two of their three first half goals. He eventually buggered off back to Scotland muttering about lack of opportunity. Dreadful player, can’t remember his name.

Of the bad things he did Glenn Roeder did one thing that I still remember, bringing John Kennedy down from Celtic on loan. He was a bit of a jewel. I can vaguely recall thinking how did he get him. Think poor old Kennedy suffered a career ending injury while down here. Although would be not surprised if I was wrong.

Of course he also brought us Ched Evans Martin Taylor .

I still haven’t and probably never will forgive him the treatment he dished out to Hucks. I was at Sheffield Wed when Dion called it a day, Hucks was walking around the pitch at the end looking lost as hell.

Roedent could never cope with any confident player with a bit of an ego – Hucks and the Spice Boys (Micky Spillane and Chris Martin) are perfect examples.

I was at the shareholders’ meeting where he belittled a guy who asked a legitimate question by saying ” I seem to have missed your tenure as England manager” or something similar.

At that point I walked out – as did quite a few others – and I’ve never been back since. It was SO embarrassing.

Anyway my (very) few shares are now in the safe hands of the Canaries Trust.

I too remember Kennedy who suffered the same fate as a guy called McNeil who was forced off by blue-shirted thugs from South London on his debut and quite possibly never played professional football again as a result.

Love this.
I don’t think I’ll ever recover from seeing Keith Scott up front for us against Charlton on my 16th birthday. Eadie consistently bombing down the left, crossing dangerous balls into the box only for Big Keith to consistently miss the ball in the box. We had Neil Adams on the right too. I believe Big Keith was swapped for mike Sheron who was rubbish for us but like George Weah for Stoke.
I also remember Ulf Otteson’s only goal to win us the match in the mid 90s against sheff u. I remember thinking at the time How big Ulf must’ve been pinching himself at the concept of him playing in a football team including David Rocastle who was on loan to us at the time.
Big Ulf and Big Keith were still better than the dreadful Peter Thorne though, who was so bad that he nearly retired after 2 yrs of woeful performances for us..He didn’t and subsequently went on to have a reasonable time of it at Bradford.

Before most people’s time but saw George Waites from Orient run ing rings round Ron Ashman on a mudbath at Carrow Road a d we signed him for £250000 I think. He was absolutely dreadful for us. Such high expectations such dreadful failure!

So 55 comments about crap players. How many of you have pulled on a shirt and played professional football? A couple perhaps? These boys were aspiring to reach a pinnacle of football which is out of reach for most of us. Most failed, some went on to some success. At least they did their best. Better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all.

That’s a great list – and some of the players on it were by no means dreadful either

Harper (until his silly sending-off), Guillanza, Nelson, Hughes and Mr “I can head the ball from the edge of our six-yard box into the opposition penalty area” Askou all played a role for us to a positive extent.

Stephen Hughes provided that cross for Chris Martin against Leeds of course.

One that possibly even the over 40s would fail to remember. Willie Young, it wasn’t just that he was bad he also went on strike refusing to train after being dropped. There is nobody who has failed this club more than that in my opinion

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